Agus
by ohwonders
Summary: Sam O'Neill carries an iron nail in his pocket.


There is a fairy ring in Sam's garden, or at least his grandfather says it is, and Connor O'Neill was never a lying sort. It's tucked away in the corner shaded by the neighbour's big sycamore, and it's small enough that Sam can jump right over it with a running start. The mushrooms that make it up are small and brown, and Sam's mother says he isn't allowed to pick and eat them unless he can find them in the book on foraging he got for Christmas. He spends a full two hours one late summer lying on his stomach with the book propped open beside him, studying the mushrooms. They look different as the light changes- ones he had thought were speckled brown and white turn out to be smooth and unmarked, coloured only by the shifting shadows of the leaves in the breeze above him- and he gives up eventually, and goes back to trying to jump high and far enough to reach the lowest branches of the tree. Although he's almost nine and he knows the world doesn't work like that, there's still a part of him that almost believes that he'll be able to see the whole world if he can just get high enough.

He misses the first few times, overshooting his jump so his fingers catch at flimsy leaves or scrape against the rough bark, and then he trips over his own feet, falling forward so that his hands just barely brush against the grass in the centre of the circle-

-and he's up in the tree, where the leaves are so close they seem to be pressing in on him from all sides, gentle and cold and damp with life against his bare skin.

_Child, _a voice says, so soft it's almost indistinguishable from the rustling of the wind. _What do you think you're doing?_

"I wanted to climb the tree," Sam says. Part of him wonders if he's in trouble, but his parents don't usually care what he does in the garden as long as he's careful not to get too messy, and Mrs Murphy who lives next door always seemed too old and sleepy to notice if Sam was anywhere near her tree or not. He's almost nine, and that's old enough to know better, but young enough that adults might still let him off a little easier if he plays cute, so he adds, "I bet you can see the whole world from the top. I want to see everything."

_Hmm, _the voice says. _Everything, you say? _Sam suddenly remembers that Mrs Murphy is currently visiting family in Scotland- he knows because his mother is supposed to be feeding her cat. _Knowledge is a dangerous thing, child_. _Be careful of what you seek._

"Who are you?" Sam asks.

_Who are you to find out? _

"I'm Sam O'Neill," Sam says. "I'm nine, almost."

There's a long, low sigh through the leaves. _O'Neill. Son of kings, hmm?_

Sam isn't sure how to respond to that one, so he just shrugs. He's pretty sure his dad isn't a king- he's busy in a way which doesn't make sense to a child's routine of endless school and long, bright summers- but he's never been one to argue.

_Sam isn't your true name. _

"It's the one I use. Ma says it's too confusing otherwise." Connor is a family name; between his father, grandfather, cousins, and several unrelated family friends, there are at least seven Connor O'Neills currently drifting in and out of Sam's life, and at some point between naming her son and his being old enough to recognise it, his mother said _enough_ and decided that he'd go by his middle name, or a version of it.

_Very wise. _

There's a pause. The leaves seem closer, darker, than before, and Sam abruptly wonders how long he's been tucked away up here.

_Why do you wear red? _

"I like it," Sam says, tugging at the hem of his red coca-cola shirt, a hand-me-down from a cousin. "It's my favourite colour."

_Another wise choice. I will let you go now, son of kings. But be careful. Few are as kind as I am. _

Sam is lying on the grass at the far end of the garden. The sun is beginning to set, and his mother is calling him in for dinner.

Three children go missing from the village that summer, one by one, including Sam's cousin (Connor G, they called him at school, just for the sake of clarity). Sam's grandfather gives him an old iron nail and tells him to keep it with him, and there's something about the old man's expression which makes Sam do it without a second thought, even though it wears a hole in three coat pockets before he thinks of wrapping the sharp point with electrical tape.

Within a month, Mrs Murphy has the old sycamore cut down. When he asks why, she says that it was sick, rotting from the inside. Their garden seems bare and vulnerable that winter, and every year after. Those early years soon take on the barely-there, dreamlike quality; the fairy ring stays, and Sam doesn't go near it again. He keeps the nail, though, and he wears red, almost without realising it. Red ties, red jewelled cufflinks from his eighteenth birthday, red scarves and gloves and hats in the winter. He buys several packs of those socks with the days of the week printed on them and only wears Tuesdays. It's easy to hide your superstitions, and if anyone does notice, he shrugs it off with a _sure, there's no harm in it_.

He loses the nail twice: once on the same day he meets Rob Ryan, and by extension Cassie, for the first time; it's raining absurdly heavily for mid-July, and he switches his usual jacket for his winter raincoat without even thinking about it. He isn't sure what happens the second time, because it's the day he's called out to Lexie Madison's body and personal superstitions kind of take a back seat amidst the mess of Operation Mirror.

He doesn't dream often, but there's just one during that time, a fleeting impression of the ruined cottage, filled with close-pressing leaves and the soft, gentle voice. _Son of kings_, it says, a little surprised. _I suppose we both protect our own,_ and then it's gone, and Sam wakes up on his couch with files scattering from his lap to the floor.


End file.
